The bad news: my overall deadlight installation went south. Only one of the four went in properly and cleaned up to my satisfaction with putty. In over-sanding around the window edges I managed to change the contours of the sail itself. Not by a lot, but enough to ruin it in my eyes. A replacement Seaview sail is now on order from Mr. Merriman. The experience gained from this first attempt should help the next one go more smoothly. No, I'm not foolish enough to expect perfection from these efforts, but my "good enough" standard is admittedly pretty high on this project. This is a special boat and she's gotta be right. New deadlight windows are already in progress. Here are some pix of my first attempt.

Cellophane tape holds the deadlights in position while their glue dries. I tried two different types of special clear window cement, finally having to go with CA for adhesive strength. Note that a combination of flat black paint and black Sharpie (which worked best) has been applied inside the window cavities to simulate unlit depth within the sail behind the deadlights. This decision actually worked out well.Pre-putty.Putty goes on to fill in around the deadlights' edges.This one cleaned up okay and looks pretty good. It's the only one of the four which did. I found I'd recessed the windows too far back into the sail for the putty to properly conform to the window shape. Next time the deadlights will protrude so they can be sanded off flush without harming the shape of the sail. (In hindsight, thinking I could achieve this any other way now seems stupid!)

Some good news: I did finish to my satisfaction the installation of the rod-and-sleeve joint for holding the stern/engine assembly in position aligned with the rest of the hull. My initial attempt to affix the rods and sleeves with resin and fiberglass was a total bust. The switch to Z-Poxy and fiberglass wasn't much better. Finally fell back on my ol' tried and true friend JB Weld—and it worked great without embedded fiberglass. Pix below. Note that there are four rods: I found that the two round ones installed first weren't able to carry the load by themselves, so two square ones were added for more solidity. The rectangular opening visible in the hull (keel) in the shot immediately above and below is the Mini-Sub hatch, which will be permanently open on this boat to allow water for the pumpjets—though I am attempting to make some decent removable cosmetic "doors" for this hatch for display use only.

More bad news: the seam filling work for the above-described aft joint failed miserably in my first attempt. I'd used my old standard Milliput putty from Micro-Mark after enjoying a lot of success with it in the past. This time however, not so much. Perhaps because I'd used the superfine formula rather than the regular. Or maybe because I hadn't mixed it long enough. Or possibly it had aged beyond its useful shelf life. Whatever. The next day I took it all off, cleaned up the joint and tried again with the more labor-intensive Z-Poxy and micro-balloons. A few pix shown here. First, the putty attempt that didn't work, then the Z-Poxy attempt currently in play. (The first shot here clearly shows the stern assembly locked in place; rods and sleeves performing perfectly!)

More good news: I've now completed scribing the missile hatch hinges onto the superstructure deck. The full-size studio deck set featured cheesy-looking raised missile hatch hinges (which Moebius mimicked—though much improved—in their popular release), but as I recall the miniatures had nothing but the raised hatches themselves (I'd have to double-check that). Regardless, I like the look of the flush-to-the-deck hinges as represented by scribed outlines. Much more like a real boomer. Note in the below pic how the hatch outlines themselves (used to aid in positioning the raised hatch pieces later) are irregularly spaced. The kit came with these positions pre-scribed in this way; that's why they're putty-filled (done long ago) here in this shot. I intend to position the missile hatches as accurately and symmetrically as I can on my own. Meantime, there's still other deck detail scribing and bow plane scribing to accomplish later as well.

More later,Jeff

Last edited by JefftyToo on Sun Jan 09, 2011 4:33 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Man, I can't believe it was Jan. 3 when I last posted here. Lots of Seaview progress since then to note. Have taken a serious approach to building—every Sunday for at least five hours; all day long if I can manage it. Why the obsession? Mid-July deadline: I want the boat finished and with me when traveling in the Midwest this summer—and also for my annual fall events in Houston and San Francisco, of course. Plus I have to account for the time Steve Neill will need her for his graciously agreed-upon build participation. He'll be handling some seam work, the control surface installation and linkages, plus the paint job and trimming. That doesn't sound like it leaves much for me, but believe me, it still does: basic hull construction and much cosmetic work—plenty of puttying and sanding—plus a whole lot of odds and ends...not to mention that Observation Room build, customized to represent the First Season of the show...meaning I can't use Merriman's wonderful same-scale latter-Seaview Observation Room kit. Scratch-build, here I come.

Okay, on to progress pix...

When last updated, I'd just scribed in the missile deck hatches. Since then, I've trimmed the superstructure all the way around its bottom to make the depth of its sides scale to plans and photos of the eight-foot miniature. I've also scribed, rejected, filled/re-scribed, rejected, refilled/etc., ad nauseum, various panel lines on the deck intended to at least suggest those seen on the full-size deck set. I've finally just about finished that process, thanks to Tom Kisler's wonderful suggestion to use labeling tape to finally scribe those lines in reasonably straight and close to proper alignment. Almost done with that process. Here's a shot showing it in progress. After that is a shot showing my markings to cut out openings behind Marc d'Antonio's wonderful laser-cut scale limber hole overlays so they'll be open to sea. Haven't opened these superstructure holes up yet because so much delicate deck detailing remains to do first. Marc's (FX Models) limber hole patterns are dead-on accurate—making up for the less-than-perfect ones scribed into position on the original kit piece. Marc's are shown below; the mispositioned original scribings which fall outside the intended edges of the overlays must all be filled in.Scribing deck panel lines. You can see the ones I've already done between the missile hatches. Not great unfortunately, but the best I could do.

Have also experimented—not very successfully—with making my own non-skid/safety track shown between the missile hatches on the deck set and (sorta) on the miniatures. I tried to scribe long parallel straight lines on a strip of styrene. This is much harder than it sounds, meaning I've learned I'll have to go with corrugated styrene stock from Evergreen or Plastruct. I've ordered long samples of various types similar to the short length shown below; I'm not yet exactly sure which I'll end up using.

My attempt. Not bad, but not good enough. Pencil's just for scale.

Long strips of stuff like this should work nicely.

Meanwhile, I've been endlessly Milliput-puttying and sanding the twin caddy fins—one of which has had a horrible tendency to continually disintegrate along its leading edge. Over and over I've re-built it up and sanded it smooth...and have finally tossed a first coat of primer onto both fins to look for flaws. Just a little spot putty needed now in a couple of tiny areas and we're finally there. Whew!

Fun to finally paint over the multi-colored, puttied, caddy fin mess!

Time now to tackle the access panel which will eventually allow the Observation Room module in and out of the snout for service. The First Season eight-window Seaview had no Flying Sub, you'll recall, and therefore no Flying Sub Doors, so this access hatch will be seam-hidden as well as possible when all is said and done. Here's the panel shape marked for removal:

And here it is cut out. The semi-circular styrene piece visible on the carpet through the opening will eventually be the floor of the Observation Room. Nice, smooth cutting job on the panel, eh? I was proud of that. Started with a razor hand saw along the straight line in back; finished with as thin a blade as I could jerry-rig onto an Electro-File Reciprocating Tool (a Tom Kisler-suggested purchase, and a very useful one—thanks, Tom!).

Tack-gluing in part of the opening's lip with CA. JB Weld will be the permanent adhesive later. (See below.)

Tack-gluing in the lip at the back. These lips are just cut pieces of thick Evergreen styrene stock.

First pass at filling the seam with 30-minute Z-Poxy and microballoons. My usual sloppy work. Lots of sanding in my future!

Lip's now JB Welded in. Love this stuff.

A Sign of Things to Come. I created this label to go on the outside of Seaview's eventual carry case. Long story there. Short version: the hard shell golf bag travel cover I'd acquired through work for this purpose has frustratingly turned out to be a little too short. (Should work great for a smaller boat in the future, though.) Now I'm working on getting a true military-grade replacement—also through work—manufactured by a rifle case company. Long enough and hardy enough is the new goal. Here's the golf case that didn't quite work out....

Some of you may recall from earlier postings that I wasn't too pleased with my first attempt at deadlights. Actually the deadlights themselves were great. It's their installation that went awry. Continual sanding to smooth the puttied window edges subtly altered the contour of the leading edge of the sail. I say subtly, but it was still enough to really bug me. So new windows have been made, and a replacement sail has now arrived. Unfortunately, the sail's molding tool was so old there were alignment problems with the final pulled piece—much apologized for by Mr. Merriman—and as you can see in the photo below, putty repair work on the new version, the green one, has already begun. If it turns out I can't fix and re-scribe the bottom of this new sail to my satisfaction, I can always try bisecting the sails at midsection and then marrying the good bottom of the old one to the good top of the new one. But let's hope that doesn't become necessary. Meanwhile, let's also hope that the second time's the charm when it comes to deadlight installation...which I hope to attempt in another couple weeks or so.

For now, it's on to deck detail like finishing those panel lines, adding hatches and grab irons, plus attaching the boat's caddy fins—and eventually, that famous nose.

More later,Jeff

Last edited by JefftyToo on Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Here's a caddy fin being touched up with spot putty. Since taking this shot I've tried to better shape its connecting edge to the tapered roundness of the hull contours at the aft end of the boat—only, of course, to stupidly remove too much material from both this fin and its mate! Now they each have to be re-built up again with epoxy. More work! Lesson learned: stay away from drum sanders!

Last night I hit the superstructure with a couple of quick test coats of primer just to see what I've got...

Have to admit I was a little surprised: the panel lines (definitely flawed when scrutinized up close) look better than I expected. And the missile hatch hinges, which I thought I'd scribed pretty exactly and consistently, don't look quite as good as I thought they would. Go figure. No matter though. All this scribing should come off as good enough, since some of it will be covered over with deck hatches and that coming strip of styrene non-skid/safety track. Also, critical eyes will be distracted from at least some flaws by the addition of cleats, a capstan, the forward sonar dome and a whole lot of grab irons.

More to come...Jeff

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Time for a quick update of recent work before I get back to the boat today.

A little above I noted how I'd ruined the shape of the connecting edge of the caddies through overzealous use of a drum sander with my cordless Dremel. I've now taken important—and for once, successful—steps to deal with this by blue-taping a sort of coffer dam around the bottom of each fin to allow build-up with goopy epoxy. Well, that's not quite true. Earlier in the week I used my old standby Z-poxy and a lot of microballoons. This stuff works well enough, but must cure at least overnight and is difficult to sand. At Kerry Addington's knowledgeable insistence I bought some new quick-curing Evercoat Metal Glaze yesterday to try it again on the second fin. I'd used this stuff once before to terrible effect and had totally sworn off of it. In fact, I tried another experiment with my original canister/batch last week and wound up tossing the creme, the hardener, the whole schmear; it'd turned bad over time and was useless.

Well, it turns out I must've had a bad batch in the first place because this time—just last night—it worked like a champion! I love this stuff now, and will no doubt be using it for other applications.

The pic below shows the attachment edges of both caddy fins. The bottom fin shows yellowish Z-pozy buildup along its edge. For comparison, the top one displays the telltale bluish tint of Evercoat along its edge. Both have now been sanded to the proper curved shape along their bottoms (using coarse grit sandpaper attached to the hull in correct spot to shape the curve properly), and both also show the thick layer of greenish Milliput putty along their sides...the next (and last?!) step in smoothing things out and making the fins useful again. This is among today's projects. Assuming all works out, I'll throw some more primer on them later to check the final finesse. Then I can start working on getting them attached to the hull—something I actually should've achieved long before this....

Speaking of paint, I tossed a light single coat of off-white auto spray on the underside of the manta fins just to see how seamless I managed to get the joint of my Observation Room access panel. A pic's below. The finished version will require more sanding and obviously more paint too, of course, but it's not half bad! This joint will actually require additional putty as well, I'm convinced, because attaching the snout-piece atop the hull will require bending the extreme forward end of the keel up a bit to meet the nose, and that will stretch open the gap at the aft end of the access panel somewhat, if you follow me. This can be fixed later when all hull positioning is permanent.

If I don't manage to post more here tonight, I certainly will soon. Meanwhile, here's a shot my wife took last night while I was under the influence of Evercoat fumes. Will I make my self-imposed deadline on this build and turn it all over to Steve Neill in time? As Darth would say, "Hihhhhhh-hehhhhhh... I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Okay, I spent the bulk of the day on those dag-blasted caddy fins again—but this time to good effect. Here's one with its Milliput (seen last time) all smoothed away.

From here, both fins were again sanded and re-sanded to fit properly against the hull. Both also required spot puttying (more Evercoat plus some Nitro-Stan) and more sanding and more sanding. Note the multi-putty-colored attachment edge (seen above). Eventually I primered 'em again to see how they were turning out.

Lookin' pretty good. A few minor glitches (that the camera can't see) still to address. Then, next week, it's finally time to attach these guys.

Jeff

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Managed to sand and shape the after end of the nose piece and forward end of the upper hull piece so that they mate properly. Killing the seam between them will now be easier when the time comes.

Worked more on the caddy fins too: more shaping, sanding, spot filling. Finally got them where I need them to be. Drilled holes for the brass positioning rods you see at the forward tips, plus the two screws on each fin farther aft.

Positioned the fins and drilled holes in the upper hull for their screws. Here you see them loosely screw-mounted while I practice positioning them at the proper angle: 97° matches the average angle present in the fins of the two different scale Moebius kits. Moebius was accurate in their approach, taking most of their measurements off the 17-ft.miniature as I understand it—with a lot of input from Mr. Merriman. That's good enough for me. Next week the screws themselves will be JB Welded-in, while the fins will be jigged in place (somehow) and CA'd for permanent placement. After that will come fin fillets using Evercoat Metal Glaze.

Spent the bulk of the day carry case wrangling. See, I picked up my new, huge, military grade (no airline monkey's gonna mess with my boat!) Seaview carry case this week. A story in itself. Some other time. Then I picked up the foam for it—scraps generously provided by a different source. A better story, actually, but not right now. So spent the day shaping assorted sizes and types of blocks of foam to fit.

Here's the case:

And here's the foam:

A lot of cutting, clipping, tearing and cleanup, and here's the final product:

The plan print cutout shown above is to size. As you can see, there's still plenty of room all around her in the case for assorted tools, batteries, doodads, rescue gear (water shoes!), etc. I may even be able to fit in the radio and battery chargers and avoid having to carry them in their own separate case. We'll see.

Then I decided to see how well this gargantuan contraption fit in the car. I have a Saturn Ion Coupe with so-called "suicide" doors. Lotsa room inside with the seats folded down, and wide, easy cargo access from the sides. It practically takes Hannibal's entire army with all his elephants to haul that thing in and outta the car, and the fit is tight, but it does work. Here's proof, trunk shot first:

Then I decided to try an experiment:

Yes, Nautilus still fits in the car even with that giant case. Just barely. But it wouldn't be a good idea to travel this way anyway. It won't be necessary regardless: the case is only for when Seaview needs to fly. To drive, with or without Nautilus, Seaview will be comfortable enough slung across the back seat, I imagine, perhaps wrapped in a towel.

Next time, back to the build. I hated to take this break from the construction work, but my name would've been mud if I hadn't gotten all that loose foam out of the house! (Before cleanup, I even managed to pack that other case with foam—the golf bag travel cover shown somewhere above—for its eventual later use as a possible travel home for a Revell Gato.)

More later,Jeff

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.